Focusing on the greater Canberra region, there are approximately 581 domestic cleaners employed throughout the ACT, however:

“As with the commercial cleaning industry, it is hard to determine exact employment numbers”. (ABS, 2016)

Demand for residential cleaning is reinforced through high and dual-income households and the ageing population. Several in-home aged-care programs now offer cleaning services, particularly through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

“The cleaning industry is forecast to continue growing steadily over the next five years, with revenue rising at an annualised 1.7% to reach $8.6 billion in 2019-20. This growth is lower than in the previous five years because the industry will continue to mature and high competition will limit pricing growth.” (ATO, 2017)

Workers in Canberra’s domestic cleaning industry are generally employed by small family owned companies and franchisees. Most are sole traders (including CBR Cleaning Services).

Canberra’s aging population and a push by the ACT government to promote aging in the home is increasing demand for domestic cleaning services. Having busy lives and having an active role in family life is also likely to drive demand in the residential sector.

“Customer service has been identified as a major skill gap.” (IBISWorld, 2015)

With the above in mind, I can refine my domestic target market to three categories:

Time poor female professionals, aged 35 – 50, single, with or without children and an annual income of $100,000+

Time poor couples with or without children, aged 35 – 50, both working full time in professional roles

Singles or couples, aged 65 – 80, retired, with age related complaints that reduce their ability to perform activities of daily living

The last target market in this list is well catered for. The Australian government has many aged and disability related funding schemes set up to assist these individuals with activities of daily living (including cleaning), and to become a provider through these schemes is too complicated to get involved with at this stage. Therefore, I’ll be focusing most of my effort on the first two target markets.

In Part 6 of ‘Building a cleaning company’ we’ll take a look at how we can start to market our services to our commercial and domestic target markets.

“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic” – Seth Godin